Curious Geek. Husband. Father. Educator.

The Big Secret: I got an Intel Mac Mini

I’ve been alluding to a big suprise that I’ve been playing with the last week or so. New hardware. Exciting. Hype-building. I didn’t let the cat out of the bag because I had photos and video of the “unboxing ceremony” that I wanted to get ready to post before I said anything.

And then I got busy, and those things kept slipping. And people were IMing and emailing me, asking what the new toy was. I told them, because it wasn’t a super-secret NDA thing. I just wasn’t ready with all of the stuff I wanted to share.

Well, I’m a victim of my own hype. I still don’t have the video ready, or the photos posted to Flickr. There’s a fun little side project site I want to “launch” along with those, too. They’re coming, soon. I promise. But I don’t want to drag this out any longer.

The big surprise was that I lost my Mac virginity. I got an Intel-powered Mac mini, to use as a podcast/video production machine at work. Core Duo 1.6GHz, 2 GB of RAM, and an external La Cie 160GB Firewire hard drive that sits under the mini and matches it perfectly. It’s my first Mac, and I’ve spent the last week or so playng with it, learning my way around OSX, and trying out software. It’s been a blast. 🙂

Those of you who know me know that I’ve wanted a Mac to play with for a long time, if only for the opportunity to learn a new platform. I’m a Windows guy by trade, but I know enough linux to be dangerous. Mac OSX was the only major OS I’ve never really played around with. Since I like to consider myself “platform agnostic” – that is, no “religious” affiliation with any OS – it only made sense that I’d add a Mac to the stable one day.

So the big question is, am I going to “convert”? Will I be staying in the land of beautiful icons, slick window animations, and cool features like Dashboard and Expose? Sorta. I’m definitely hooked. Not to the point that I’m going to dump Windows – there are still lots of cool things that you can only do in Microsoft-land, for work and for play, but I’ve had a taste of OSX, and I definitely want more.

I’ll more than likely be picking up a Mac laptop, but I’m going to wait and see what gets announced in the next couple of months. The 15″ Mac Book Pro just seems a little bigger than I want. I’ve been spoiled by small laptops like the Dell 700m and the X41 Tablet. But, I may find that the resolution of a smaller 12 or 13 inch screen just isn’t enough (my mini is hooked up to a Dell 2005FPW 20″ widescreen LCD, running at 1680×1050). We’ll see.

Expect lots more Mac posts in the future, along with lots of questions – I know a lot of my readers have been Mac users for a long time. Many thanks to those that have already helped me out – especially my friend Tod at work, long time Mac user who has patiently answered my questions and tolerated my child-like glee at getting a shiny new toy. Can’t wait to keep finding cool new stuff for it! 😀

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4 thoughts on “The Big Secret: I got an Intel Mac Mini”

Good for you Josh, I popped my Mac cherry about a year ago when the first Mac Minis came out after spending the better part of a decade talking everyone I know out of an Apple. They’re fun. Enjoy yourself.

I’m joining Nav in the “jealous of Josh” crowd. I actaully started spec’ing a mini out right after I saw this! We have some good posts that might be beneficial for anyone wanting to do some HDTV on a mini; I’m still using a WMCE box for that at the moment.